Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky, 2010)

After showing initial promise, Darren Aronofsky slowly and inexorably disappears further up his own fundament. Black Swan is a horror film without a consistent source of threat, a study of breakdown compromised by both the fantastical horror elements and the shackles of attempting to parallel the Swan Lake plot, a parental abuse drama which is largely left unexplored, and a ballet film for people who don't like ballet but guiltily feel they should. It looks glorious and it's stretched gossamer-thin by hedging its bets on trying to cram in something for everyone. Therefore, it's virtually sure to win the Oscar.
The plot, in a nutshell, is Natalie Portman's ballerina being challenged by Vincent Cassel's ballet director to find her inner passion so that she can play the dark half of the Swan Queen role. This provokes no end of hand-wringing and tears in a Portman character who's single-notedly wimpy even by her febrile standards, and then she starts falling to bits with nasty visions of her dark half under the strain of having to force herself to become sexual. So, it's basically the virgin vs. whore dichotomy.
There are lots of seductive glosses, of course: the photography is lush, the deranged visions subtle and crisply edited enough to be genuinely startling even for jaded horror buffs, and the use of enhanced sound whenever Portman contorts her body, all suggested tears and cracks, is very effective in conveying a sense of the ever-present hazardousness of her metier. But strip away all this varnish and there's very little underneath.

5/10